Last night, as I lay her down in her crib, her eyes fluttered open briefly. She saw me and gave me a big grin, then closed her eyes, sighed, and settled back in to sleep.

Her father sleeps with a CPAP. Sometimes it slips off his face in the night, and the hissing of escaping air combined with his snoring often makes me unable to go to sleep or get back to sleep, or relax while nursing in the middle of the night. So I will hiss at him, trying to wake him up from across the room without waking the sleep-nursing babe in my arms. Often, she will stop nursing when I do this. Not wake up, not entirely, but stop nursing without actually unlatching. Eventually Dad will get himself situated and I can stop verbally prodding him. After a few moments of silence, it’s like she decides, “Okay, that’s over, nothing to wake up for” and will snuggle into me, sigh, and resume nursing.

When I pick her up from daycare, as soon as I have a hold of her she starts waving goodbye to everyone else. Or perhaps hello to me? Perhaps it’s both.